Blogs from Springbok, Northern Cape, South Africa, Africa

Hi all, we are now at port nollith a campsite called Mac dougalls bay after a stop over at Springbok, what is it with these municaple parks, after staying in a private park it is realy a let down to come to one of these parks, thay generally have awsome parks but very run down, no maintenance and shabby ablutions, well enough moaning. Once again the gremlins were with us, after leaving Clan william all went well for 80 km. then buksie started over heating, it was a very hot day 30 + so we unhitched buksietjie and Wanda had to drive her and i drove buksie but to no avail, just kept on over heating, so we decided to stop over at Springbok to sort out the problem, unfortunatly there isnt much in the way ... read more

We hope that you would like this blog since this is our first try at this. We are from South Africa and don't travel that much but we have a general interest in travelling so hopefully we would learn something from these blogs. Any recommendations would be appreciated.... read more

On the way to Namib After a wonderful two days with Anton, Petro and their 2 kids Tristan(2) and Zarna (4) (Sarahs Cousins) - in Langebaan staying in the ultimate beach house we are now on our way north. Langebaan was wind plus - up to 30 knots - I kited in perfect conditions and the kids and Sarah fell in love with the town and beach house... amazing - a kite destination that the kids love !!! Finally Nirvana has been found. We drove our 4WD last night deep into Cederberg National Park and had a great camp on a river, swam and slept under trees getting buffeted by wind gusts up to 40 knots. Not alot of sleep but an amazing setting Now 1 hours drive from the Namibian Border heading for Fish River ... read more

Vlooisdriff to Trawal, South Africa This was an easy travel day, around 300 km on paved road, making our way down from the high desert plateau into wine country. We arrived at Highlander's and pitched our tents on a grassy terrace overlooking hills of grapes, all hung with fruit just formed. Whip Man and his truck White Nile was already there. We knew he would be, since we were scheduled to have a wine tasting with his group later that afternoon. They are now a small group, and we noticed some tension between two people, who were fighting, which is not an uncommon sight for an overland group, we are told.   This is spring in South Africa. We went for a walk down the road for a few kilometers, just enjoying the scenery, with grapes ... read more

Well what a festival to remember. Proper boere style good old fashion vetpret. We spent the day at the fees from early morning Saturday right through to that time of night when you know you’ve had enough but you keep going until you’re so thankful that you don’t have to crawl much further than the parking lot to your truck to crash out. There were a few other campers scattered around but the other hundreds of people must have booked into the dozen or so guest houses or the Hotel or crawled into a hole somewhere. There were loads of stalletjies selling stuff from kweper jelly to spotted Nguni cowhides. They had animals on display from stud Merino sheep which nearly measured to under my armpits (I bet those peertjies weren’t for sale), miniature donkeys, beautiful ... read more

IT was a 118 km drive to cross the border into South Africa again. Just be aware that crossing this way takes longer than coming into Namibia but there is no charge. We had decided to stay in Clanwilliam for the night at the Clanwilliam Lodge, which looks amazing on the Internet. We hadn't booked it, so when we arrived, we asked for a room. I'm quite sure they overcharged us as the internet said it was only £60 per night but we paid about £80. The lodge is very dated now unfortunately although we can see that it once was a fabulous place to stay and if someone would 'do it up' it could once more be a gorgeous hotel. Our room was quite poky but the shower was great - best shower I have ... read more

The 800k detour! (having trouble loading photos as internet connection is too slow - will try again later) Again a local gave us good advice but this time it was ‘go west now to see the spring wildflowers - the rain has come early.’ We debated this over 2 rest days, again in a nice cabin at Upington doing the washing, and decided to head into the setting sun. The 400km journey west to Springbox had a South American feel (not that we’ve been to S Am!!) with huge sweeping semi-arid plains between various oddly shaped piles of rock - well mountains actually of all sorts of shapes (I could just imagine a gaucho galloping across). (Strangely) my navigating skills were tested that afternoon as we had difficulty finding the Namaqualand National Park - a whole ... read more

springbok: camped indoors. I wonder how big an insect needs to be to hear it scuttling across the floor? Some big bugs got up at 4am, crossed the floor and then climbed the walls in all directions, so I put my tent up on the bed, not wanting some black bug crawling across my face in the nite. It stands quite nicely on a flat bed with the two ends attached to the bed posts. I've been carrying 6 liters of water and still got caught out in Kamieskroon with the granite mountains and something like 34 degrees. 60kms to Garies took me to midday, but the 46kms to Kamieskroon took 6hours as the sun got the better of me. The Hotel in Kamieskroon put my 5 litres water bottles in the freezer, so I had ... read more